Water-wheel



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

DEAN S. HOYVARD, OF LYONSDALE, NEV YORK.

WATER-WH EEL.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 12,949, dated May 29,1855.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, DEAN S. HOWARD, of Lyonsdale, in Lewis county andState of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement inWater-Wheels; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full,clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to theaccompanying drawings, forming part of this specification, and in which-Figure l is a side elevation of the wheel, scroll, and flume, the shaftonly being in section. Fig. 2 is a central horizontal section throughthe wheel and scroll.

My invention has reference to that class of wheels commonly calledcentral-discharge wheels, and it consists in an arrangement of lthebuckets and plates between which they are secured in such form as toreceive the direct action of thewater' at the periphery of the wheel,whence they verge from a vertical toward a horizontal course along theshaft, forming a double conical screw which isaffected by the reactionequal to the excess of motion of the water over that of the wheel.

In the accompanying drawings, A represents the flume for conducting thewater to the wheel. It is so arranged that about onethird (more or less,according to circumstances unnecessary to detail here) of the area ofits cross-section overlaps the periphery of the wheel, so that thatportion (one-third) of the water strikes on the rst bucket, the balancebeing conducted onward in the graduallytapering scroll B. Each bucketaround the wheel will be acted on by the direct force of a portion ofthe water in its passage through the scroll until the whole of it entersthe Wheel. The buckets c are set in between two annular plates aroundthe shaft. These plates d d are curved from the periphery to the axis,as shown in Fig. 2, the one d being secured to the shaft, while theother d is attached to it by bolts passing through both near theirperipheries and clamping the buckets edgewise between them. The bucketsare cut straight. Their edges are parallel, and i'n conforming to thecurved plates they are twisted about one-fourth round, so that the endnear the axis of the wheel is nearly at right angles to that at theperiphery, (and may be continued with the same varying curve and twistas represented in red lines,) forming a spiral or screw partially aroundthe shaft, which, gradually straightening, terminates parallel with theshaft, the end being radial and its edge at right angles tothelongitudinal center line of theshal't. This form of wheel on ahorizontal shaft should be constructed double, so as to discharge thewater to the right and left equally, as represented in the drawings, toobviate any lateral'pressure on the journals which wouldl result fromthe reaction of the water on the screw part of the buckets if itdischarged on one side only; but if on a vertical or inclined shaft thesingle wheel should be used, discharging the water downward, in whichcase the buckets maybe continued in a'spiral form indefinitely down theshaft. The flume A may be arranged either vertically or on an incline,as most convenient. The Water in passing' through the Wheel is made tochange its course. After striking the buckets at the periphery of thewheel it converges toward the center and escapes laterally at nearly aright angle with its course in the scroll, or may be continued untilperfectly at right angles thereto, or spirally down the shaft, asdescribed above. It travels through the scroll B at a velocity due tothe height of its column in the flume, and in its centripetal directioneach revolution of the Water in a smaller circle than the preceding onewould be performed in a proportionately less amount of time, provided itmet with no resistance. Then supposing the orifice of discharge at thecenter of the Wheel to be half the diameter of the wheel, the water, ifunobstructed, would at that point make two revolutions in the same timethat it would occupy in performing one in the scroll at the periphery ofthe Wheel. Again, supposing the periphery of the wheel to travel at thelsame velocity as the water in the scroll, the orifice of discharge beinghalf the diameter would travel through half the space. Consequently themotion of the water at the discharge, if unchecked, would be double thatof the Wheel at that point, andso inproportion at different parts of thewheel between said orifice and the periphery, and will therefore reactupon the wheels buckets in proportion to such excess of motion of thewater over that of the Wheel at the Various parts thereof. The water,en-

tering the scroll and passing around the periphery of the wheel, strikeswith a direct pressure on the convex side of the bucket, the wheelrevolving in the same direction that the water passes through thescroll. The water in being crowded toward the ais of the wheel maintainsa continuous bearing on the bucket equivalent to the excess of motion ofthe water over that of the wheel, as

' above described, and the direction in which it strikes the bucket issuch that it does not ilnpinge thereon, but follows smoothly round untilit arrives at the discharge orifice, whereas if the water were to strikeon the concave side of the bucket itrnust impinge to another point inits surface, so that the space between these two points of deflection onthe bucket would be but slightly, if at all, affected by the pressure orreaction of the water, and considerable tlutterin g of the water andconsequent unsteadiness of motion in the wheel would be the result,while in my wheel the fullest extent of the combined direct and reactionof the water is secured and the most perfect steadiness of motion in theWheel isV D. S. I-IOVARD.

'Witnesses A. GREGORY, WM. M. SMITH.

